LAS CRUCES – New Mexico State gets a rivalry game early in the season for 2015-16.

And the Aggies will be looking for their first win over New Mexico in Las Cruces since the 2007-08 season. After opening the season with a 91-69 win over Houston Baptist Friday night, the Aggies have the first of two Rio Grande Rivalry games against New Mexico on Sunday.

For the first time in a while, the NMSU students will be in session for an Aggie-Lobo game at the Pan American Center. The Aggies are currently riding a 11-game home winning streak.

“This is the first time since I’ve been here we get to play them (at home) while school has been in session.” NMSU junior guard Ian Baker said. “Most of the time we’ve played them, we’ve been on break. It would be a nice crowd, but not too many students would be there. It’s good for us that the students will be there this time.”

UNM swept the series last season, beating the Aggies 62-47 in Albuquerque and 69-67 in Las Cruces. It was a sweep that hurt NMSU’s RPI after the Lobos finished 15-16 overall and 7-11 in the Mountain West Conference and had a RPI of 216. New Mexico has won 13 out of the last 16 meetings with the Aggies.

NMSU went 1-3 last season in their rivalry games against the Lobos and UTEP.

The Lobos started the season with a 86-57 win over Texas Southern Friday night.

“It’s good for them, it’s good for us,” NMSU coach Marvin Menzies said about playing UNM early in the season. “It’s good for the town, specifically the campus community because of the fact that everybody’s here. They’re very similar to us. They have a young team and have a couple really key pieces that have returned. I think it will be a great battle. I would have loved to gone in there full force, but it is what it is. We have experienced that several times here throughout my tenure.

“We’re going to have our guy’s heads right, try to bring our very best effort and try to keep that victory at home.”

The Aggies will still be without sophomore forward Johnathon Wilkins, who’s out due to an administrative error concerning his academic eligibility.

The Lobos should be improved from last season, but are picked to finish sixth in the Mountain West preseason polls. UNM also has guard Cullen Neal back after an injury last season. Neal didn’t play in either of the two games against NMSU last season and scored a game-high 22 points for the Lobos in Friday’s win. Other key players for New Mexico are junior forward Tim Williams (17 points, five rebounds on Friday) and Butler transfer Elijah Brown (16 points, six assists on Friday).

The Aggies went 10 deep in Friday's night win with 11 of the 12 NMSU players that played getting into the scorebook. The Aggies also had nine of the 10 players that played in the first half score as well.

"(Friday), we wanted to focus on defense first ... and just play hard," said Aggie sophomore forward Pascal Siakam, who scored 28 points with 11 rebounds and three blocks. "I think the guys executed well. We're ready to play on Sunday."

Mark Rudi can be reached at 575-541-5455 or at mrudi@lcsun-news.com. Follow him on Twitter @mrudi19.

If you goWhat: New Mexico (1-0) at New Mexico State (1-0) in the first of two Rio Grande Rivalry games.